Robert Becker
Former college English teacher, with UC Berkeley Ph.D., Robert Becker left the University of Chicago to found a high end, international audio business (SOTA Industries), then moved on to consulting, grant and promotional writing, along with venture capital investments. Since 2005, when he retired to Mendocino, Becker has been fascinated with the range and humanity of the Frolic shipwreck story, how it ripples across the region and the globe of the 19th Century. His expertise relies on the lucid scholar-investigator Tom Layton, whose two books(with a third in the wings) has made this crash the most written about Gold Rush shipwreck in California history, a window to early state and Northwest coast development.
Jeff Bruning
Jeff Bruning has been a resident of the coast for a quarter century. He and his wife, Kitty, live in the peace of the redwood forest and within earshot of the the unresting pacific. Jeff is a retired physician, who is now employed with “musing on nature.” He is fascinated with Mendocino’s history and stopped by Kelley House last fall to volunteer as a docent. Jeff has enjoyed researching and discovering the richness of the local history, and has now stepped up to lead our historic walking tours around the village. Jeff says, “Getting to tell the story of Mendocino is the cherry on top!”
Betty Carr
Betty Carr: “I have lived in Fort Bragg most of my life, but as a child we moved often and I went to many different schools. Only one of my five children was born elsewhere in California and all of them graduated from Fort Bragg High. I worked as a teacher’s aide at Redwood School for twenty-one years. I’ve been a member of the Native Daughters of the Golden West for sixty years and I’ve been active in our Historical Society since it was organized in 1999. I have an avid interest in local history.”
Alice Flores
If you spend a lot of time around heritage roses, strange and wonderful things happen to your hats.
Alice Flores is an expert on heritage roses. Many varieties of roses were planted in the early years of the town's existence by Daisy MacCallum and her compatriots, and Alice's tour will take you by many of these original bushes.
David Foucheaux
David Foucheaux is the Vice President of the Board of Directors for the Fort Bragg-Mendocino Coast Historical Society, which operates the Guest House Museum in Fort Bragg. “I was born in Fort Bragg and am a 5th generation Mendocino Coast native and live in a house that was built by my great great grandfather. I have always been fascinated with local history and the thrill of the hunt in researching our local history and what you can find about the past in our little corner of the world and its connection to the history of our state and country.”
Louis Hough
Louis Hough of Albion is a maritime historian and frequent volunteer at the Kelley House. Louis’ interest lies chiefly in steam schooners, not just their adventures but as a vital contribution to the economy of the entire West Coast. He also loves old locomotives, the Mendocino logging railroads and lumber mills. At his talk on May 23, Louis hopes to describe and discuss how much our frontier communities depended upon—and even cherished—the little steamers and schooners of the Redwood Coast.
Louis has written stories for the Kelley House Calendar for more than a dozen years, and composed articles for our quarterly magazine and newsletters. Louis has a number of awards for editing non-theatrical motion pictures in the Bay Area and for research and writing in West Coast maritime history. His book on the wooden freighters of World War One was published last fall.
Marianne Hurley
Marianne Hurley is a district historian who has worked for California State Parks since 2001, after transferring from Caltrans where she was an environmental planner (architectural historian) with District 4 in Oakland. Her field work draws on her background and expertise in American architectural history and historic preservation, the subject areas of her graduate degree from the University of Oregon (M.A., 1998). In addition to private consultation work, she also worked for a preservation architecture firm in San Francisco where she gained valuable experience surveying and researching historic structures.
With an office in Petaluma, her responsibilities include the oversight and preservation planning for historic properties in 32 parks. Geographically, these parks range from Fort Ross in Sonoma County to Angel Island in San Francisco Bay and Robert Lewis Stevenson in Napa County to Mount Diablo in East Contra Costa. Currently she is the project manager for the stabilization of the John Marsh House in Brentwood. Additional responsibilities include oversight for a cultural landscape study at the Vallejo Home in Sonoma, a condition assessment of the adobe at Olompali State Historic Park, and documentation and evaluation of the interiors at Officers’ Row on Angel Island. Professional affiliations include the Society of Architectural Historians, Vernacular Architecture Forum, and the Association for Preservation Technology. Marianne has also contributed several chapters of a soon-to-be published guide to architecture in the nine Bay Area counties.
Marie Jones
Marie Jones is the Community Development Director for the City of Fort Bragg. She is responsible for all long range and current planning activities, economic development, and for major City projects. Marie is a key player in the reuse of the GP mill site a 425-acre site that comprises 1/3 of the City of Fort Bragg. Other activities include: planning and management of the design and environmental review for the Fort Bragg Coastal Trail, implementation of the City's Economic Development Strategy, planning and development of the Industrial Arts Facility, Sustainable City Program, and a wide variety of other activities. Prior to working for the City of Fort Bragg, Marie was the Principal of her own consulting firm, Marie Jones Consulting, where she provided economic development, planning, real estate economics, and green building consulting assistance to a variety of public, non-profit, and private clients in California. She also worked as the Director of Economic Development for the San Francisco Partnership, the Director of Economic Development for the Michigan Manufacturing Technology Center, and as Conversion Planner for the Center for Economic Conversion. Marie has a Masters of City Planning from Cornell University, and a BA in Environmental Studies from University of California at Santa Cruz. She is a LEED Accredited Professional. Marie grew up in Fort Bragg and graduated from Mendocino High School in 1983.
John Mott
John Mott has served as the Cooperating Associations Program Manager for California State Parks headquarters in Sacramento since 1996. This program is a network 84 nonprofit organizations serving the 278 parks in the system. Collectively these associations donate more than $10 million annually in funding and support resulting in interpretive and educational experiences serving hundreds of thousands of visitors annually.
John's parks career began in 1973 as a seasonal Park Aid. For 18½ years he has worked as a ranger and supervising ranger in state parks in or around Lake Tahoe, Anza Borrego Desert, the San Diego, Santa Barbara, and Santa Cruz coasts and the redwood parks of Santa Cruz County.
He currently serves on the board of directors of California Fly Fishers Unlimited as Conservation Program Chair. For past two years has coordinated the club’s Fish in the Classroom Program, serving over 50 classrooms in the Sacramento area. Past volunteer positions include serving as a leader in scouts and churches.
Residing in Sacramento with his wife Marsie, he commutes to work by bicycle. Other hobbies include organic gardening, hiking, camping and mountain biking. Stephanie and Adam, his children, are a junior and sophomore in college.
Martin Simpson
Martin Simpson has served on the Board of Directors of Kelley House for seven years. He also serves as a member of the Archives Committee where his responsibilities include collections management, accessioning artifacts, documents and photographs and historical research. He is responsible for conception, installation and promotion of permanent, new and visiting exhibits as the Exhibits Coordinator. He also works with the Educational Coordinator to develop programs to involve students in developing an interest in local history. Martin is also a member of the Mendocino Historic Review Board.
A second hobby is collecting, caring for and educating others about reptiles. He also has a background in fossil preparation. When not busy with history and snakes, Martin owns his own fire prevention franchise that maintains fire surpressant equipment.
Denise Stenberg
Denise Stenberg: “I am a local, born in the Grey Whale Inn, and a retired teacher. I have been active the Fort Bragg Mendocino Coast Historical Society since it was organized in 1999 with the mission to operate the Guest House Museum on lease from the City of Fort Bragg. My children grew up here and my grandsons all live here. In the College of the Redwoods Creative Writing class, over several years, I wrote the story of Glen Blair, and now it is a published work, Glen Blair–The End of the Line.”
Mike Stenberg
Mike Stenberg: “I graduated from Fort Bragg High in 1970 and the College of the Redwoods two years later. My wife, Sharlene, and I have been married thirty years and raised our two daughters here. I worked for the lumber company before settling into the auto repair business thirty-five years ago.”
“My main interests are my church and history, both very community-oriented. The Fort Bragg Mendocino Coast Historical Society had been an exciting and fun group to work with as we peel back the layers of local history. I’ve been doing this now for ten years and see no reason to stop.”
Katy Tahja , a retired librarian, is a longtime docent at the Kelley
House Museum. She is the author of many books on local history and is a big fan of writing women back into history…where they should be!
If you spend a lot of time around heritage roses, strange and wonderful things happen to your hats. Alice Flores is an expert on heritage roses. Many varieties of roses were planted in the early years of the town's existence by Daisy MacCallum and her compatriots, and Alice's tour will take you by many of these original bushes. 